


All Limbs of the Earth

by diopan



Category: Berserk (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, M/M, Multiverse, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-25 13:34:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 3,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22496926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diopan/pseuds/diopan
Summary: There's war council today.And this time, in this world, you'll finally have him. He'll finally be yours.
Relationships: Charlotte/Griffith (Berserk), Griffith/Guts (Berserk)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 70





	1. opaque

**Author's Note:**

> ty to the person who commd this  
> listography.com/diopan

There's war council today.

“Griffith—“ he hears coming into the war room—that voice?—followed by the slap of skin on skin (her hand?) “Ouch!  _ Your Majesty _ , sorry,” Corkus (enveloped by darkness, limbs being ripped apart) corrects himself.

“Is Your Majesty okay?” Judeau (torn and stabbed, bleeding out in her arms) asks.

“If you’re upset over  _ Lord _ Blackfell not being here—Ouch!”

Her hand again.

“He’s sulking because Your Majesty didn’t put him on vanguard.” 

He didn’t miss her voice, it stings like talons. His body wants to look at her but he won’t.

He looks. She’s old, as she’d be if she hadn’t been killed long ago. Her hair is braided, grayed by the temples.

Next to Grunbeld is Pippin (his corpse a puppet), Zodd and Irvine and Locus but their faces show no sign he can read. He turns to his attendants. They worry.

“Shall we fetch Lord Blackfell?”

“He’s in the Northern Woods,” she tells them.

“Where else?” Corkus mumbles.

There are woods to the north of the main castle in Falconia, and the north of the settlements, but there’s no place they call the Northern Woods, no place for him to sulk. No place for him but his burial site. But Griffith knows where to go, the woods at the northernmost end, where the walls curve.

He doesn’t run toward that spot--Blackfell, Lord Blackfell--and he doesn’t run through thick forestry--he stayed and--doesn’t let his hands and face be scratched and pricked by low hanging branches and thorns until he finds him--Lord Blackfell stayed and became a noble. It’s so dim here it’s practically night. Still, Griffith can see him (black armor shattered, torso cut clean through, insides spilled on grimy dirt).

His shoulders are broader, his back bent. He grunts, drags his heavy sword—that same one—and mumbles curses. His hair's all white. This was supposed to be a world where winters were warmer, summers longer, and there was none of this pain, this longing, this missing. Terror itself. He turns.

“How?” Griffith asks.

He’s missing an eye and an arm but he's not branded and his torso is intact.

“Should ya be here?”

“Should you?”

This might be death.

Griffith’s body lunges forward—he does—he lunges like he should’ve done that snowy day, stopped him, broken his legs, duels be damned, you cannot leave me—

“Hey! What’s witcha?” he says but falls backwards all the same under the weight of Griffith, the unevenness of the ground, Griffith’s hands on his shoulders, Griffith’s eyes on his.

“Guts,” Griffith says. He never thinks of that name. Never says it.

It hurts him and Griffith knows. Still Guts takes the fall.

“What, ya feelin’ bad bout leavin’ me outtuvit?”

There’s something in his eye, the way he strokes Griffith’s hair, the way he holds him close. If this is death he’ll die every hour.

Can he even die?

Or has he stepped into another world, a forking path running parallel to his?

Underneath Griffith, Guts shifts.

“Sum’one could come.”

Griffith’s throat is dry.

“Dun look at me like that.”

He shifts but makes no effort to push Griffith off and his breath too has quickened, his cheeks reddened, his lips parted. Griffith, who’s beyond human, has a body that's regardless slighter than this mortal man's.  _ He _ can die.

Griffith pushes his hands against Guts's chest to help himself up but Guts catches him, presses him against himself, places his chapped, dry lips against Griffith’s, half-opened, wanting. Griffith stops for a second then drags his tongue across Guts's lips.

Guts laughs and helps Griffith up. Griffith’s body trembles.

“Yer old. Years ago ya woulda fucked me here anyway.”

“In this world I fuck you in the woods,” Griffith watches him, curious, desperate, hungry. “And you don’t go to war councils.”

“Toldja already,” Guts sighs, scratches his head. “I’ll go f’ya—F’ya lemme do anythin’.”

Griffith lets a second pass before replying.

“Too dangerous.”  _ He _ can die. He  _ has _ . He’s killed Griffith too.

“Bullshit.”

He cups Guts’s face in his hands—gloved and cold and heavy—and kisses him, desperate, as if it were the first time—it is (it is!) 

The last time they were this close he was driving a sword through his stomach, feeling Guts’s spit and blood on his face and he hates the Griffith of this world. Guts holds him in his arms, close to his chest.

How did the other Griffith, the one he hates, manage to keep him, convince him to stay, be called Lord, be put in a room waiting for him to drop by? Who did he sacrifice?

“How?” Griffith traces the scars on Guts’s face with his gloved fingers. Guts kisses them.

“Your Majesty,” his attendants hesitate. They hang back, their view obscured by foliage and dim light. They probably know, though. They’ve seen them, the way they’ve seen Griffith and Charlotte in his world. “The council.”

“Battle to free the Rayma?” he asks Guts.

“What’s witcha really? Need me ta hold yer hand through it?” Guts, indeed, holds his hand to his lips. So that hasn’t changed. What else remains then?

Asiol coughs.

“Her Majesty requires you after.”

Guts lets go and forces Griffith to turn around. He pats Griffith on the back.

“Go.”

How’d you convince him, he asks himself, the one he hates, did you tell him that was enough for him? Did you will it so? Did I?


	2. translucent

There’s war council today. It's past midnight.

“I should go,” he tells Charlotte. She pouts. 

She looks young, the fountain’s twinkling lights sparkling behind her. She  _ is _ young. But all he can see is her old face, weary and tired, asking him to get rid of Guts. That’s all behind him now, he’s stepped into another one, earlier.

As he walks down the stairs, Guts is coming up.

“Was lookin’ for ya,” he says. He’s hurt, dirty, exhausted. Griffith had never known he was coming that night.

“You’re hurt.” He never knew.

Guts looks at his elbow. “Ah. Yeah. I fell in the moat”

  
  


“Thank you, you did a good job.”

Griffith kneels before Guts once Guts is sitting on Griffith's bed where he was dragged to. He works to clean Guts’s wounds off blood and grime.

“Ya dun need ta thank me.”

“I do. I’m sorry you had to kill the boy.”

“How’d ya know?”

“I heard. Before you came.”

Guts flinches when alcohol touches his open wound, watches Griffith wrap him in bandages. Griffith's clothes are so clean next to his.

“Ya dun need ta worry.”

“Before I met you, there was a boy. A child. He carried toys onto the battlefield, even. He died. It felt—I couldn’t really let myself, I needed him, everyone, because I couldn’t do everything on my own. I tried doing what I could to avoid—making money while avoiding deaths but there were things beyond my scope.”

“I get it.”

“No, you don’t,” Griffith stops. “You won’t have to again, I mean,” he looks up at Guts, for a moment, before continuing. “There’s more I can do now.”

“Ya won’t rely on me anymore?”

“In the battlefield, everyone’s the same, everyone’s got the same chances. It’s cruel here. Different.”

“Huh.”

Griffith finishes bandaging Guts and looks at him. Guts remembers locking eyes with Griffith like this before only once, when Griffith told him “Now you’re mine” and held his face. He was full of expectation then too.

“Thanks. For bandaging me—”

Griffith puts his weight on Guts’s legs and pushes himself forward. The last thing he sees before closing the distance is Guts's eyes wide open. Guts's hands come up to Griffith's waist almost immediately. He doesn't push him away until after a moment, until after the kiss. It’s our first here, he thinks.

“Wh-what's witcha?” He doesn’t recoil from the touch. He doesn’t remove his hands.

“I want you, remember?”

Guts swallows. “Yes.”

“When we return from battle, there'll be a ball. Dance with me. That’s all I’ll ask.”

Griffith backs away from Guts, gets the alcohol bottle and bandages and puts them away, his back turned.

“Dance?” Guts scratches his neck. “Did ya hit yer head? There's sumthin' diff'rent about ya.”

“Be careful tomorrow. On the battlefield. Rest. Here, if you want. Or—”

“I'll—I'll go.”

Guts stands and crosses the room towards the door. At the threshold, he stops to watch Griffith. There’s something different but he’s not as scared as he should be. He’s not full of regret for leaving but he’ll stay up all night with the thought. Griffith comes towards him, cups his face, and kisses him again, mouth opened only to fit Guts's upper lip between his, soft, and not a moment too long, the kiss. Guts's hands search for Griffith's waist on their own. When it's finished Guts pulls away, turns, and leaves.

  
  
  
  
  


“I couldn’t stand it,” Casca says. Her voice is barely a whisper over the sound of the river near the cave. Griffith told him to be careful but he should’ve told her. He ain’t the one fell over a cliff. “You got Griffith to say he wanted you so easily. I tried convincing myself he wanted you for your strength. But Griffith, so calm and composed, gets impulsive when it comes to you! It's as if—as if—”

“M'sorry,” Guts says. How she's noticed he can't say. He hadn't. He never would've imagined. He is sorry, that's true. Still—still—

“What're ya smiling to yourself about?”

She doesn't get to hear the answer.

Griffith emerges from the trees by the riverside immersed in light. Guts sees him first. Behind him is Judeau and his squad. He points his finger so she can see them too.

“Our rescue team,” Guts says.

“Yours,” she huffs and hurries into her armor.

“I'm sorry,” Griffith tells Guts as he's coming out of the cave. “In this world you don't get to be the Hero of the Hundred.”

“What?”

Griffith tugs on his hand for Guts to follow, he squeezes it, only for a second. Guts lets go and tries to shake the feeling that this is just like that time with Zodd.


	3. transparent

There’s war council today. But they won’t be attending.

“Leave,” he tells the men who were watching their fight on the hill. 

Once they do, he kneels and cups Guts’s face. He’s so young, no more than a child. He’s still shorter than Griffith. “Now you belong to me.”

Guts doesn’t recoil from this man’s touch. He doesn’t flinch. He locks eyes with Griffith and he’s about to nod before he can help himself.

“What you said, did you mean it?”

Guts swallows. “What I say?”

Griffith brings his face forward and opens his lips only to fit Guts’s lower one. It tastes of their blood mixing.

A second and Guts punches him on the mouth. Griffith falls on his back. Guts hovers over him, half kneeling.

“Ya, er, I shouldn’t a sucker punched—”

Griffith grabs his neck and pulls him down to kiss him again. Guts pulls away once the kiss is done. Must be too tired to keep fighting, his shoulder’s dislocated.

“Ya idiot,” he says, wiping his mouth off their blood.

“You don’t hate me?”

“Yer a fuckin’ weird asshole.”

Griffith laughs and lies back. He looks up at the sky. “You are too.”

Guts drops beside him, looking up, lets his extended hand rest on Griffith’s chest.

“Guess I am cause I dun hate ya.”

When they finally make their way back, both leaning their weights on each other, they find Corkus and his men gone.

“They saw you,” Casca tells them and averts her eyes. “They told the others, but some didn’t believe it. It’s not true, is it?”

“And if it is?” Griffith says.

Guts watches him from the side. He’s never once been happy to lose to someone. Never before.

“Others might leave too if they find out.”

“Let them,” Griffith walks past her, towards Guts’s tent. “We have no need for them.”

The eyes of all the soldiers follow them closely. For a second it feels to Guts, it feels to Casca, to all of them, as if they’ve stepped into a limitless space where all that exists is Griffith’s will. 

Like fire blazing on fields of grass.


	4. opaque

“I knew,” Casca says, her voice echoing in the war room. “Suspected—”

“Anyone could tell they were fags.”

“S’why I hated him, before the—”

Charlotte comes up behind him. “It's unfit for a king to eavesdrop.”

“Your Majesty,” Griffith says, bows.

“Spare me.” She has him follow her down the hallway, her shadow cast onto the walls, the floor, everywhere. “Get rid of him. They might not respect you again but they'll see you trying.”

“Did you—”

“I didn't even know men did that to each other.” She shudders. “Get rid of him. Before the people catch wind of it. His Holiness will say mass later. You should go to him.”

The Hawk of Light, to be set right by a holy man.

“Are you listening?”

“Of course.”

“Look behind us.”

Her attendants and his, four steps back, follow them.

“This is what matters. You used to understand. Rituals, ceremony, etiquette. It's why you called him Blackfell.”

“How did I ever manage?”

“You can't be king and have him.”

“There was a time you couldn't be queen and have me.”

“I never had you. I heard he left you that night. That’s why you were soaking wet and desperate.”

“I lost here too, then.”

Another attendant comes, it’s Zeis. They hand Charlotte an envelope.

“Aren’t you lucky,” she says without bitterness while she burns the letter on one of the torches hung on the wall. “He admitted he forced himself on you.” Queen Charlotte looks straight at him. “They held a trial at the cathedral.” Because she still loves him, Griffith can see the pain in her eyes. She can feel his own. “He’ll be put to death.”


	5. translucent

“You won’t leave me, will you?” Griffith feels so slight, his face buried in the nook of Guts’s arm. 

Whatever that was, hidden in the balcony behind drawn curtains, it wasn’t dancing. But he enjoyed it.

“Why’re ya askin’ that? Course not.”

Griffith laughs. Guts wishes he could look him in the eye.

“The princess will call me now,” he says but doesn’t move away until Guts pushes him.

He slaps his back. “Go.”

Before leaving Griffith kisses him. It’s just like their first kiss, tender, soft, almost melancholy.

The princess comes as soon as Griffith has put distance between him and Guts.

She links her arm through Griffith’s and guides him towards the light at the center of the ballroom. Someone offers him a glass and he drinks.

Guts can’t tell what’s louder, the glass shattering on the floor, the princess’s scream, or the ringing in his ears. He breaks through a glass door coming in, he couldn’t see it, he only sees Griffith, who sometimes feels off, lying there. Dead.


	6. transparent

“Ow! What—”

“That man,” Guts says, “coming over the hill.”

He strokes Griffith’s head where he pulled on his hair, unintentionally.

Griffith pushes himself up from lying his head on Guts’ lap and looks.

“It’s Zodd. Comes to join us.”

He’s tempted to lie his head back down. He stands.

Guts is about to say there’s something off about him but doesn’t. Sometimes he feels something off about Griffith himself.

“Locus and Irvine shouldn’t be far behind. Shall we go welcome him?” Griffith’s silhouette is cut against the sun, and he’s turned, offering his hand.

“Locus and Irvine?”

“We can’t take on the Kushan without them or Zodd. Instead of Midland, this time, we’ll go for the empire.”

“Ah, I see. Wait, what!? Take on the what!?”

Griffith’s already ways away, so Guts runs over the grassy plain, after him, stumbles only once.

  
  


He watches Griffith talk to that tower of a man, and Guts sweats and it’s cold. 

“The Kushan--s’suicide,” Guts says though he doesn’t really mean to.

Zodd laughs, though, and it echoes all over the world. “Not with him it ain’t.”

The way he defers to Griffith, whom, Guts knows, he’s never met before. It’s almost as if they have. Almost as if there were something Guts was missing. A whole chunk of it. And this Griffith isn’t his Griffith, somehow. He’s the one he bathed with and he isn’t. He’s the man Casca saw in the river, hurting himself, and he’s not a man. He’s the one who kisses him and holds his face in his hands and tells him he belongs somewhere and he holds the world and Guts only belongs in his hands. Griffith’s eyes are the universe and Guts exists there for him, because of him. Not just a small bonfire consumed by a pyre but dust consumed by infinity. It ain’t human.


	7. translucent

“He’s scary,” the princess says, covering her mouth with her sleeve. The garden is large but she knows she should cover her mouth when speaking ill of others. “He threatened Lord Venize and—He’s scary.”

“Will you ask me to get rid of him?”

Charlotte has never seen him look like that. Somber. She realizes she doesn’t know him.

“No! I could never.”

“He thought I’d died. So did everyone.”

“I know, I know. But now the war is over and he’s not—”

“Ya shouldn’t listen in,” Casca taps on his shoulder. It’s more like a punch. She found him lingering by a tall sculpted bush and ran when she realized Griffith and Charlotte were seated behind it. “Leave ‘em alone.”

“I ain’t—”

“You understand Griffith can only become king through her, yeah?”

Guts grits his teeth.

“Don’t interfere. He doesn’t think clearly when yer around. Don’t fuck it up for him.”


	8. transparent

Griffith hurries his horse back to the spot where Guts waits for him. He makes use of one of the World Tree’s branches. Those remain unchanged and he thanks Sonia for her help even though he might never meet her in this world.

“He left,” Zodd says when he hears Griffith. He’s sharpening his sword with his claws. “I thought ya’d seen it. They all did. Him, the girl, the boy, the humans that survived.”

“Take me. Follow them.”

Zodd has seen this desperation before. Unbefitting of someone like him.

“You’ll force him to stay?”

“I’ll kill him if I must.”

Zodd laughs.


	9. translucent

“Where are you going?”

Guts stops. He turns slowly.

“She tell ya, huh?”

“You said you’d never leave me.”

“… M’sorry.”

“I kept you from--I didn’t have you do—”

“The princess… She’s scared of me. Always will be. Only thing fer me here’s you—this thing b’tween us. For you it’s the castle, the crown, the princess. Ya can’t be king if I’m here.”


	10. opaque, translucent, transparent

“Don’t you understand?” Zodd’s laughter is deep and echoes over the plains, against mountains, shakes all the limbs of the Earth.

You can’t be king and have him.

At least there’s war council today. A new one’s awake.


End file.
